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THE INFLUENCE OF GRAVITY

NCT03298139 · Status: UNKNOWN · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 18

Last updated 2017-10-02

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Although most ground studies showed that an egocentric reference frame better supports spatial orientation, it is not proven it will be the same during weightlessness.

Although it might justify that visuomotor performance will be better supported by egocentric target cueing under altered gravity conditions, the fact that exocentric target cueing induces less head movements and called for least attentional and physiological workload could be the key factors for a more efficient task localization process. Moreover, weightlessness can induce spatial disorientation, which can be additionally influenced by the intrinsic and extrinsic spatial reference frames (Gurfinkel et al., 1993; Glasauer \& Mittelstädt, 1997, 1998; Harm et al., 1998; Lipshits et al. 2005). We expect that during weightlessness the workload will be the key factor and thus we hypothesize that an exocentric target cueing will outperform egocentric target cueing.

To test this hypothesis, and find out which presentation scheme for target cueing (EGO, EXO, ED) contributes most to an efficient visual search, performance to a visuomotor task will be evaluated during parabolic flights in normogravity (1g), hypergravity (1.8g) and microgravity (0g). The visuomotor performance will be assessed by a multi-directional tapping task as defined by ISO9241-9, which requests for motor responses by aimed pointing movements. Besides analyzing the pointing performance, different workload indices will be additionally assessed to evaluate the effort spent on visuomotor coordination. The attentional workload will be evaluated by the performance of a secondary task (visual reaction-time task), which needs to be conducted in parallel to the visuomotor task. Furthermore, the workload will be also assessed subjectively by the NASA TLX rating scale and physiologically, by analyzing the heart rate variability (HRV).

Conditions

  • Healthy Volunteers

Interventions

OTHER

3 levels of gravity (1G, 1.8G, 0G).

healthy volunteers will experience 3 levels of gravity (1G, 1.8G, 0G).

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University Hospital, Caen

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
67 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2016-10-01
Primary Completion
2019-10-31
Completion
2019-12-31

Countries

  • France

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03298139 on ClinicalTrials.gov